Chumpcar 7hr @ Autobahn - Sat 4/5/14 - Day #1 - part 2 of 2

As mentioned in the previous post, I would be the 4th and final team driver of the day.  I'd be driving from 2:10pm to the 4pm checkered flag.  I took the car in 26th and planned to push hard!  The car was pretty easy to drive and I quickly settled in with some 1:51-1:53 laps.  I did end up with the fastest lap of the team for the day - a 1:50.6.  The track was full but manageable and the car stayed consistent.  As I tried to pick up the speed even more, it became evident the car was setup to push (understeer) either for safety concerns or simply be accident.  It pushed badly in 2,3,4,5 and 13 where I had to back out of the gas mid-corner!  Not ideal, but at this point in the race I was trying to make up as many respectable position as possible!

The first 45min went by pretty normally.  The last hour was a bit more hectic; the last 15min was downright crazy (exactly why we switched me into the last stint) with a few different double-yellows because of contact and was hectic restarts where I wasn't the only one pushing hard for spots!  The first vid here is the last 45mins or so.

As I mentioned, it got more hectic.  Racing between local yellows and trying to time when a double-yellow will drop are 2 pretty difficult things to master.  Get it wrong and you can cause a wreck, injure a corner worker (very very bad), lose positions and/or incur a penalty.  Get it right and it's pretty sweet, fun, and definitely rewarding!
All in all, I pulled the car up to 20th and with a DQ in the top finishers, we ended up 19th overall out of 42 cars.  22 laps behind the leader and 7 laps out of 15th.  I figure that we lost 5-8 laps with the spin in stint #3 - which was the only spin for the team.  I am happy to say the entire team kept it clean; no car contact and no black flags!  Pretty much what I thought as we had a solid chance at 15th w/o the spin.  The 2 newbs were obviously slower, but we all expected that and by keeping it clean I thought they did a pretty solid job.  Pitstops were hastily planned, but executed pretty well with regards to fuel and driver changes.  We never checked any setup on the car at all - which I thought was a mistake.  We would eventually check the tire pressures after the race and find the fronts to be 42 and 55! 

The last vid here is the final 3 laps of the race - keep in mind that's the final 3 laps of an 8 hr race!  It should give you a good snapshot of what things are like with managing slower and faster traffic, not passing under yellows, timing passes, etc.

We'd be doing the same thing tomorrow; another 7 hours!